The iPhone nano is back. The vaporware – part handset, part iPod – has re-emerged more than a year after first speculation. The newest iteration comes from China.
The latest rumor is that iDealsChina is producing a case for the unnamed product that supposedly will be unveiled at Macworld in January.
The Chinese company, which MacRumors says has “a very mixed track record” when it comes to leaking news of actual products, notes the case’s dimensions “have the same height as the just release Nano but wider and thicker and with the same iPhone 3G contours.”
The reports come as analysts suggest Apple won’t unveil a new product category at Macworld. The tradeshow has been used by CEO Steve Jobs to launch new devices.
In 2007, a JP Morgan analyst launched a thousand blog posts by writing Apple was about to unveil “a cheaper version of the iPhone in the fourth quarter that could be based on its iPod nano music player.”
Avi Greengart, a handset analyst for Current Analysis, told Cult of Mac, rumors of a smaller iPhone rank among the top three rumors during the annual “silly season” leading up to Macworld. Other unconfirmed reports that never seem to die: a tablet Mac and a subscription-based music service.
4 responses to “iPhone Nano – The Rumor That Won’t Die”
Not happenin.
Any news at MW will be about Snow Leopard.
What about a disk-based nano? Nobody is going to pay $600 for an 64GB SSD, not even those freaks who bought iPhones for that price. Apple pretty much destroyed the essence of the nano/mini with this version, making it an iPod “junior,” and the classic is all but orphaned. Why not combine the two into a single platform with a slightly different back panel? Everything inside is the same, so save money by manufacturing fewer parts.
Maybe they’re making a nano touch that does nothing extra except use a cool touch screen and stick you for an extra hundred bucks. Actually, considering Apple’s new market identification as the leader in touch screens, this isn’t so outlandish, is it? It fills out the iPhone line, and just think of all the games they can sell on the App Store.
I meant it as a joke, but a nano touch makes a lot of sense. Should the PSP be worried?